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azúcar

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word azúcar

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1200–1250 Gonzalo de Berceo More words from the 12th century
Borrowed from
Arabic سكر via Old Spanish
Ultimate origin
Sanskrit शर्करा

Pronunciation

  • /aˈθukaɾ/, [aˈθu.kaɾ], /aˈsukaɾ/[1]

Forms

azúcar m or f same meaning (plural azúcares)[1] Old Spanish wrote açúcar with a voiceless sibilant, as Nebrija still did.[2][3] Old Navarrese texts have çucre and çucar.[4] Asturian has azucre and Aragonese zucre.[2][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish açúcar, borrowed from Andalusian Arabic سكر (assúkkar), from Arabic سُكَّر (sukkar).[2][6][7][8][1] The Arabic article ال (al-), assimilated to the following /s/, survives in the initial ⟨a-⟩.[9][8]

The Arabic word came from Middle Persian 𐭱𐭪𐭥 (šakar), which goes back to Sanskrit शर्करा (śárkarā, “gravel; sugar”).[8][1][7] The DLE places Ancient Greek σάκχαρι (sákkhari) between the Arabic and the Middle Persian word.[7] Corominas is more cautious: both the Arabic and the Greek word come in the end from an Indic original.[2][6] Corriente, Pereira and Vicente add a Pali form between Middle Persian and Sanskrit.[8] Wiktionary takes the Sanskrit word back to Proto-Indo-European *ḱorkeh₂ (“gravel”).[1]

The same Arabic word gave Portuguese açúcar, Catalan sucre and Italian zucchero; German Zucker comes from the Italian, and French sucre was taken from Catalan.[2][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is Berceo, in the first half of the 13th century.[2][6] In the Milagros de Nuestra Señora the miracles of the Virgin are mucho más dulzes qe azúcar sabrosa, “much sweeter than tasty sugar”, the sugar given to the sick; there the noun is already feminine.[10][11][2] The CDH's earliest hit, in the Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250), survives only in a 15th-century copy.[12]

Semantic evolution

Medieval texts name it as a remedy and a delicacy: a law of Alfonso X speaks of the physician who makes a syrup or electuary with sugar, and Juan Ruiz lists its kinds, polvo, terron, e candi, e mucho de rosado.[10][13] A Canarian contract of 1491 already speaks of buen açucar blanco “good white sugar”.[14] The word is recorded in Puerto Rico in 1512.[15]

Autoridades in 1726 describes the juice of the sugar cane, boiled and dried, and lists kinds such as azúcar de pilón, made in conical loaves.[16] In chemistry the word now names the carbohydrates in general.[7] In Nicaragua azúcar is a popular name for diabetes, and in Puerto Rican slang it means heroin.[17][18] The Spanish word was borrowed into Tagalog as asukal and into many other languages of the Philippines and the Americas.[1]

Timeline

  • 1200–1250 – Berceo, the first record for Corominas.[2][6]
  • 1250 – açúcar in the Moamín.[12]
  • c. 1250 – Alfonso X's Lapidario has miel o açucar.[19]
  • 1491 – a Canarian contract for four hundred arrobas of white sugar.[14]
  • 1495 – the derivative azucarado first appears.[6]
  • 1512 – the first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico.[15]
  • 1726 – Autoridades calls it an Arabic word and lists its kinds.[16]

Meanings

Noun

  1. sugar: a sweet, white crystalline substance obtained from sugar cane, beet and other plants.[7][1]
  2. (chemistry) A carbohydrate.[7]
  3. (Nicaragua) diabetes.[17]

Word family

  • azucarado
  • azucarera
  • azucarillo
  • azucarar
  • azucarero
  • sacarina
  • sacarosa
  • Arabic سُكَّر (sukkar)

Usage notes

Azúcar is of either gender: masculine in Arabic and in the literary language, it has become feminine in everyday speech in the Americas, Andalusia and elsewhere because of its initial a, a usage already in Berceo.[2][11] The DLE gives it as masculine or feminine, with the masculine more frequent in the chemical sense.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 437
  3. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 284
  4. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. azúcar
  5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 850
  6. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. azúcar
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. azúcar
  8. ^ a b c d e Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter, p. s.v. açúcar
  9. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 104
  10. ^ a b Alonso Pedraz, Martín (1986), Diccionario medieval español: desde las Glosas Emilianenses y Silenses (s. X) hasta el siglo XV, 2 vols., Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, p. 476
  11. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. s.v. açucar
  12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. azúcar
  13. ^ Eguílaz y Yanguas, Leopoldo de (1886), Glosario etimológico de las palabras españolas (castellanas, catalanas, gallegas, mallorquinas, portuguesas, valencianas y bascongadas) de origen oriental, Granada: La Lealtad, p. 349
  14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. azúcar
  15. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. achúcar
  16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 521
  17. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. azúcar
  18. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. azúcar
  19. ^ Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. azúcar

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Azúcar.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/az%C3%BAcar. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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